Thoughts on pursuing academia? (English Literature, UK)
October 19, 2016 2:13 AM Subscribe
Hi,
I finished an English degree recently. I'm older than most - late 20s. I really like the idea of an academic career, but... (there are several buts)
- I'd need a Masters. Which I'd need to fund. The funded Masters degrees I've seen ask you to talk about the research you plan to do (your dissertation), which I don't feel I would have a good idea for without having first done the actual coursework for the Masters. (If anyone can encourage me and tell me a good way of coming up with a proposal when I feel unprepared, that would be welcome!) Other than that funding, all I've seen available is career development loans. The idea scares me.
- I'm prone to anxiety. I'm really scared of how it's likely to go if I do a Masters degree. Is there anyone here who's pursued an academic career (or just done a Masters) in the UK in a similar subject? Wondering if you'd be able to tell me about how it tends to work out? Even if I got funding for a Masters, and even if I got funding for a PhD, my understanding of how you get from that to a permanent job is patchy. It sounds like a very insecure path, trying to cobble together postdocs without moneyless gaps? I don't have parental or spousal backing to support me through gaps like that.
-How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through? Are there specific ways of making it to a permanent job? I don't think I'd attempt this in the US at all (as I've heard how dire the situation is there), but there seems to be less information on how it is in the UK. I don't know, though, to what extent all the desperate people in the US are also applying to the UK, making the UK just as bad a market?
-How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful. Will I ever be able to have as "literary" a life if I don't do this? (I can't imagine managing to have as literary a life if I pursued a high-intensity, reasonably-well-paid non-literary-academic career.) I guess this is hard because not doing it would feel like relinquishing who I want to be.
-(re: the "literary life", I know publishing is a path many seem to take, but most publishing is really badly paid, *and* tends to have its jobs in the really expensive cities like London and Oxford. I'm not used to having enough money, so I don't really know how much is enough, but ... I'd really love to own a house some day. And I don't know if that would ever be possible if I chose a career renowned for poor pay. Plus, most literary publishers spend most of their time reading really bad work, don't they? :) )
-I know people (including a close family member who I can't talk to about this) who are pursuing the humanities-academic path, and it will be very, very hard for me to handle it if they succeed and I was too scared to ever try. :(
-I don't think I see myself as a school teacher, only a university teacher: I don't think I would be up for handling the kind of bad behaviour that school teachers cope with, and I feel morally uneasy about private education and uncomfortable around extreme posh privilege. (Please let me know if you think I'm wrong about any of this.) So if I did pursue an MA and/or PhD, I suspect it wouldn't have a great deal of value (in terms of content) for any career other than academia.
-It's not as if I don't have anything to lose. I have other talents and there are secure/financially stable career paths I could follow, but everything I've considered also requires a fair bit of graft and financial investment/loan to get qualifications. This is OK, but it feels like either/or, not "try one, and then try the other if the first doesn't work out". At my age, in my late 20s, pursuing academia feels like a gamble that might destroy my entire life if it doesn't work out (but I keep thinking "what if" about academia as it is, so not doing it is also painful) - if I put whatever meagre savings I have into academia, then I may not be able to backtrack and try the other paths (or it will be significantly harder).
I'm really stressed and miserable over all of this. Thanks for advice and comments.
- I'd need a Masters. Which I'd need to fund. The funded Masters degrees I've seen ask you to talk about the research you plan to do (your dissertation), which I don't feel I would have a good idea for without having first done the actual coursework for the Masters. (If anyone can encourage me and tell me a good way of coming up with a proposal when I feel unprepared, that would be welcome!) Other than that funding, all I've seen available is career development loans. The idea scares me.
- I'm prone to anxiety. I'm really scared of how it's likely to go if I do a Masters degree. Is there anyone here who's pursued an academic career (or just done a Masters) in the UK in a similar subject? Wondering if you'd be able to tell me about how it tends to work out? Even if I got funding for a Masters, and even if I got funding for a PhD, my understanding of how you get from that to a permanent job is patchy. It sounds like a very insecure path, trying to cobble together postdocs without moneyless gaps? I don't have parental or spousal backing to support me through gaps like that.
-How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through? Are there specific ways of making it to a permanent job? I don't think I'd attempt this in the US at all (as I've heard how dire the situation is there), but there seems to be less information on how it is in the UK. I don't know, though, to what extent all the desperate people in the US are also applying to the UK, making the UK just as bad a market?
-How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful. Will I ever be able to have as "literary" a life if I don't do this? (I can't imagine managing to have as literary a life if I pursued a high-intensity, reasonably-well-paid non-literary-academic career.) I guess this is hard because not doing it would feel like relinquishing who I want to be.
-(re: the "literary life", I know publishing is a path many seem to take, but most publishing is really badly paid, *and* tends to have its jobs in the really expensive cities like London and Oxford. I'm not used to having enough money, so I don't really know how much is enough, but ... I'd really love to own a house some day. And I don't know if that would ever be possible if I chose a career renowned for poor pay. Plus, most literary publishers spend most of their time reading really bad work, don't they? :) )
-I know people (including a close family member who I can't talk to about this) who are pursuing the humanities-academic path, and it will be very, very hard for me to handle it if they succeed and I was too scared to ever try. :(
-I don't think I see myself as a school teacher, only a university teacher: I don't think I would be up for handling the kind of bad behaviour that school teachers cope with, and I feel morally uneasy about private education and uncomfortable around extreme posh privilege. (Please let me know if you think I'm wrong about any of this.) So if I did pursue an MA and/or PhD, I suspect it wouldn't have a great deal of value (in terms of content) for any career other than academia.
-It's not as if I don't have anything to lose. I have other talents and there are secure/financially stable career paths I could follow, but everything I've considered also requires a fair bit of graft and financial investment/loan to get qualifications. This is OK, but it feels like either/or, not "try one, and then try the other if the first doesn't work out". At my age, in my late 20s, pursuing academia feels like a gamble that might destroy my entire life if it doesn't work out (but I keep thinking "what if" about academia as it is, so not doing it is also painful) - if I put whatever meagre savings I have into academia, then I may not be able to backtrack and try the other paths (or it will be significantly harder).
I'm really stressed and miserable over all of this. Thanks for advice and comments.
How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful.
You will spend a lot more time doing admin, get your publication quota up, meeting outreach requirements, marking papers, and sitting in departmental meetings than you think. Talk to people already in UK academia (especially seek out people in humanities. Academia is squeezed hard already, but 'soft' areas like arts & culture are squeezed especially hard in the UK).
posted by kariebookish at 3:17 AM on October 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
You will spend a lot more time doing admin, get your publication quota up, meeting outreach requirements, marking papers, and sitting in departmental meetings than you think. Talk to people already in UK academia (especially seek out people in humanities. Academia is squeezed hard already, but 'soft' areas like arts & culture are squeezed especially hard in the UK).
posted by kariebookish at 3:17 AM on October 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
I am a former English Literature(-ish, I overlapped with some other areas) academic in the UK. I got a Masters and PhD, worked for about six years in postdoc roles, then left for another career.
Is there anyone here who's pursued an academic career (or just done a Masters) in the UK in a similar subject? Wondering if you'd be able to tell me about how it tends to work out?
At the moment the academic system is producing many, many more PhDs than it has (permanent, full-time) academic jobs for. This is not likely to change for the foreseeable future. So people drop out, jump out or are pushed out at various points along the way.
Some people - but very few and increasingly fewer - have a permanent job lined up before they get their PhD. Most others float around for a while picking up work in and around universities. Lots of these are jobs hourly paid - mostly teaching assistantships (most PhD students in EngLit will already be doing these, and then you tend to carry on with them and/or pick up extra work at other unis after finishing the PhD). Then there's 'teaching fellowships', which are usually full-time jobs lasting a year or two with a heavy teaching load. Postdoctoral research assistantships are becoming a bigger thing, because of changes to how research funding works, but there are still not loads of them - and they're also short-term (3 years max). Most people who land a permanent academic job will have done some combination of these beforehand.
It sounds like a very insecure path, trying to cobble together postdocs without moneyless gaps?
Yes. If you are geographically restricted (or just reluctant to move), it's even harder. Even when you get to the level of insecure but well-paid jobs (I was actually on a fairly good salary as a postgrad), you have to save to cover gaps, and it's harder to e.g. get a mortgage, or plan out your life.
How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through? Are there specific ways of making it to a permanent job?
It's bad. Really, really bad. Maybe not quite as bad as the US, but very close.
In terms of how amazing you have to be - this is probably the wrong way to think about it, because the job market isn't just picking the absolute best of the crop. Lots of people who are really, really amazing don't get jobs, on any rung of the ladder. There is a large element of luck to it - I landed my first postdoc role partly because I had two overlapping, very specific, areas of expertise in addition to my PhD work, and I had those because of chance as much as anything else. There were definitely people I know who were more amazing than me who didn't get jobs, or who spent many, many more years slogging away in hourly-paid TA work before landing one.
Lots of PhD students fall into the trap that the way to get one of those increasingly rare permanent jobs is to just work really, really hard, and be really, really good, and be really, really devoted to academia and to your subject. And those all matter, but they aren't enough. So many people get burned out and depressed throwing all that they've got at the system and thinking that if it doesn't reward them with a job in response, it must mean they didn't work hard/weren't clever enough/weren't devoted enough, and maybe if they just worked that bit harder... etc.
Other than that, things that make a permanent job more likely? Teach, publish during your PhD, try to get experience that a lot of others won't have - so convening a course rather than just teaching on it, other admin work where possible. Have future research plans that make it very, very clear you understand the funding landscape and are both realistic and ambitious about what you're going to accomplish.
How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)?
It was great in many ways. I miss getting to do my research, and I massively, massively miss teaching undergraduates. But it's also very hard and stressful in ways that aren't always visible when you're an undergrad. Grant-writing is becoming an increasingly big part of the job, and that's hard and exhausting and time-consuming - and stressful, especially when your future depends on it. (And it does an increasing amount - there are more and more jobs coming up where the deal is, we'll hire you for X years and at the end of that we might give you a permanent job, if we're happy with how much research funding you brought in.) Admin is a big burden. Meetings are numerous and often endless. Hours are long, long, long. And you get to spend a lot less time reading literature than you might expect!
I guess this is hard because not doing it would feel like relinquishing who I want to be.
I can't tell you how literary your life will be if you don't pursue this, but I can tell you that for your own mental health, it's best to separate out who you want to be from what you want to do. This is an issue academics have, especially in this field - we get so invested in it that we see it as an identity more than a job, and in doing so we forget that it is a job, really, with all the labour issues surrounding that (shitty job market, bad workforce conditions for the precariat further down the ladder).
You will probably get people telling you that you should only pursue academia if you can't imagine yourself doing anything else with your life. These people mean well, but they are giving you bad advice. If you can't imagine doing anything else with your life, you need to start imagining more broadly. There are other fields out there where you can be happy; there are other ways to be who you want to be; and swearing your soul to academia won't make it give you a career in response. If you decide to go down this route, you need to think of a Plan B for if it doesn't work out for you, especially if you do not have money already to carry you through the tough times.
posted by Catseye at 3:27 AM on October 19, 2016 [36 favorites]
Is there anyone here who's pursued an academic career (or just done a Masters) in the UK in a similar subject? Wondering if you'd be able to tell me about how it tends to work out?
At the moment the academic system is producing many, many more PhDs than it has (permanent, full-time) academic jobs for. This is not likely to change for the foreseeable future. So people drop out, jump out or are pushed out at various points along the way.
Some people - but very few and increasingly fewer - have a permanent job lined up before they get their PhD. Most others float around for a while picking up work in and around universities. Lots of these are jobs hourly paid - mostly teaching assistantships (most PhD students in EngLit will already be doing these, and then you tend to carry on with them and/or pick up extra work at other unis after finishing the PhD). Then there's 'teaching fellowships', which are usually full-time jobs lasting a year or two with a heavy teaching load. Postdoctoral research assistantships are becoming a bigger thing, because of changes to how research funding works, but there are still not loads of them - and they're also short-term (3 years max). Most people who land a permanent academic job will have done some combination of these beforehand.
It sounds like a very insecure path, trying to cobble together postdocs without moneyless gaps?
Yes. If you are geographically restricted (or just reluctant to move), it's even harder. Even when you get to the level of insecure but well-paid jobs (I was actually on a fairly good salary as a postgrad), you have to save to cover gaps, and it's harder to e.g. get a mortgage, or plan out your life.
How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through? Are there specific ways of making it to a permanent job?
It's bad. Really, really bad. Maybe not quite as bad as the US, but very close.
In terms of how amazing you have to be - this is probably the wrong way to think about it, because the job market isn't just picking the absolute best of the crop. Lots of people who are really, really amazing don't get jobs, on any rung of the ladder. There is a large element of luck to it - I landed my first postdoc role partly because I had two overlapping, very specific, areas of expertise in addition to my PhD work, and I had those because of chance as much as anything else. There were definitely people I know who were more amazing than me who didn't get jobs, or who spent many, many more years slogging away in hourly-paid TA work before landing one.
Lots of PhD students fall into the trap that the way to get one of those increasingly rare permanent jobs is to just work really, really hard, and be really, really good, and be really, really devoted to academia and to your subject. And those all matter, but they aren't enough. So many people get burned out and depressed throwing all that they've got at the system and thinking that if it doesn't reward them with a job in response, it must mean they didn't work hard/weren't clever enough/weren't devoted enough, and maybe if they just worked that bit harder... etc.
Other than that, things that make a permanent job more likely? Teach, publish during your PhD, try to get experience that a lot of others won't have - so convening a course rather than just teaching on it, other admin work where possible. Have future research plans that make it very, very clear you understand the funding landscape and are both realistic and ambitious about what you're going to accomplish.
How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)?
It was great in many ways. I miss getting to do my research, and I massively, massively miss teaching undergraduates. But it's also very hard and stressful in ways that aren't always visible when you're an undergrad. Grant-writing is becoming an increasingly big part of the job, and that's hard and exhausting and time-consuming - and stressful, especially when your future depends on it. (And it does an increasing amount - there are more and more jobs coming up where the deal is, we'll hire you for X years and at the end of that we might give you a permanent job, if we're happy with how much research funding you brought in.) Admin is a big burden. Meetings are numerous and often endless. Hours are long, long, long. And you get to spend a lot less time reading literature than you might expect!
I guess this is hard because not doing it would feel like relinquishing who I want to be.
I can't tell you how literary your life will be if you don't pursue this, but I can tell you that for your own mental health, it's best to separate out who you want to be from what you want to do. This is an issue academics have, especially in this field - we get so invested in it that we see it as an identity more than a job, and in doing so we forget that it is a job, really, with all the labour issues surrounding that (shitty job market, bad workforce conditions for the precariat further down the ladder).
You will probably get people telling you that you should only pursue academia if you can't imagine yourself doing anything else with your life. These people mean well, but they are giving you bad advice. If you can't imagine doing anything else with your life, you need to start imagining more broadly. There are other fields out there where you can be happy; there are other ways to be who you want to be; and swearing your soul to academia won't make it give you a career in response. If you decide to go down this route, you need to think of a Plan B for if it doesn't work out for you, especially if you do not have money already to carry you through the tough times.
posted by Catseye at 3:27 AM on October 19, 2016 [36 favorites]
I'm an (early career) academic in the UK, in Arts and Humanities but not English Lit.
The outlook in UK Arts and Humanities academia is, like in the US, pretty damn bleak right now. Simply put, there are basically no jobs, or no permanent jobs. Most of my peers who PhDed, including myself, are faced with a very very limited supply of jobs with ever more applicants. The vast majority of people I know have been forced to leave academia simply to earn money to pay the bills. A source of personal financial support (significant savings, parental contributions or partner earnings) tends to be what makes the difference - the cash helps paper over the many many cracks of low pay, waiting for job openings, and the super unstable landscape of short term temp contracts.
On a practical level, I would absolutely not recommend self-funding a PhD, though I'm 50-50 on self-funding a Masters. Funding at this level shows you can bring cash into the institution, which is a big asset as you move up in your career, and really helps with securing the almost inevitable postdoc or two.
As for a dissertation topic: this is above all a selling document. It's not what you definitely will do, but a showcase of your thinking and what you could do. Look in particular for big trends in your field, including stuff getting funding, and interests of your potential supervisors. You need to be interesting and original, with some key facts (e.g. a text or two you'd have in your corpus, the most important thinkers in the area). But again, it's a selling document, a means to an end to get them to accept you, not your actual final dissertation plan.
Hope the above helps!
posted by thetarium at 3:35 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The outlook in UK Arts and Humanities academia is, like in the US, pretty damn bleak right now. Simply put, there are basically no jobs, or no permanent jobs. Most of my peers who PhDed, including myself, are faced with a very very limited supply of jobs with ever more applicants. The vast majority of people I know have been forced to leave academia simply to earn money to pay the bills. A source of personal financial support (significant savings, parental contributions or partner earnings) tends to be what makes the difference - the cash helps paper over the many many cracks of low pay, waiting for job openings, and the super unstable landscape of short term temp contracts.
On a practical level, I would absolutely not recommend self-funding a PhD, though I'm 50-50 on self-funding a Masters. Funding at this level shows you can bring cash into the institution, which is a big asset as you move up in your career, and really helps with securing the almost inevitable postdoc or two.
As for a dissertation topic: this is above all a selling document. It's not what you definitely will do, but a showcase of your thinking and what you could do. Look in particular for big trends in your field, including stuff getting funding, and interests of your potential supervisors. You need to be interesting and original, with some key facts (e.g. a text or two you'd have in your corpus, the most important thinkers in the area). But again, it's a selling document, a means to an end to get them to accept you, not your actual final dissertation plan.
Hope the above helps!
posted by thetarium at 3:35 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Getting to read (and write about) texts
In a graduate program you will also spend a lot of time reading ABOUT the texts that interest you—as much or more as you spend actually reading them. This is a big difference I think people don't always understand especially well, so I'd read some scholarship and/or look at some grad syllabi to see if that kind of reading is going to wreck or extend your pleasure in the texts that interest you. Reading ABOUT Lolita is very different from reading Lolita.
This sort of like . . . I'm a historian. I will probably never see Hamilton [don't @ me, people], because for me it's someone else's interpretive work and I will probably not be able to just enjoy it. I'm sure some historians love it—one's mileage does, after all, vary—but I can't see it as just a story to take in.
posted by listen, lady at 4:51 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
In a graduate program you will also spend a lot of time reading ABOUT the texts that interest you—as much or more as you spend actually reading them. This is a big difference I think people don't always understand especially well, so I'd read some scholarship and/or look at some grad syllabi to see if that kind of reading is going to wreck or extend your pleasure in the texts that interest you. Reading ABOUT Lolita is very different from reading Lolita.
This sort of like . . . I'm a historian. I will probably never see Hamilton [don't @ me, people], because for me it's someone else's interpretive work and I will probably not be able to just enjoy it. I'm sure some historians love it—one's mileage does, after all, vary—but I can't see it as just a story to take in.
posted by listen, lady at 4:51 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you enjoy teaching adults/undergrads and you're not 150% driven with regard to the grind of academia, consider becoming certified to teach English as a Second Language. No idea how it works in the UK, but here in Canada, there are lots of options, ranging from after-degrees to Masters' and Doctorate degrees. If you can find a position within an academic setting, it's a nice compromise because you're at a university, teaching university students, and receiving some (minimal) funding for professional development, but you can bypass a great deal of the insane competition for professorships.
posted by bluebelle at 5:58 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bluebelle at 5:58 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I agree with the other comments that a career in academia in the UK is an enormous gamble right now, especially in the Arts and Humanities. It's just a nightmare market at the moment, and it doesn't look like things will get better in the next ten years.
I suppose one bigger-picture question you could ask yourself is what your life goals really are, and whether it's true that academia is the best place to achieve those goals. From your post, it looks like you want:
(1) a "literary" life, i.e. to "read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)" -- academia can be a bit like this, on some days, if you're very lucky in your institution and colleagues. There's no guarantee that it will be, and it's likely that there will be many less fun elements as well (pressure to publish, administrative responsibilities, departmental politics)
(2) to have a job that supports you in managing your anxiety - hah. no. 1 in 4 PhD students struggle with anxiety and depression, I believe, and the statistics for full-time academics are also not great. It's a job where most of your projects are open-ended and not inherently time-limited, time is relatively unstructured, where you are constantly under pressure to perform, and where dealing with rejection and criticism is the norm. Managing one's mental health in this context can be a real challenge.
(3) to have a job that gives you financial security, and allows you to own your own home one day - not in the current job market, no. There's a real risk of being trapped in a cycle of insecure part-time jobs for years and years, with a fluctuating income and no permanent contract to help you get a mortgage.
So the question is, can you have the life you want - reading and writing texts you enjoy, surrounded by people who value what you value, interaction with students/young people - outside academia, while still achieving your other goals like financial security and protecting your mental health. I think, certainly, you can achieve the goal of a culturally rich and satisfying life, focused on literature, outside academia. If teaching is important to you, you could consider qualifying to teach in a FE or sixth form college setting, which means you wouldn't have to deal with the behavioural challenges involved in teaching younger children. If teaching is less important, you could pursue one of your other ambitions - aiming at job security and financial stability - while still reading and writing in social settings (e.g. creative writing classes or book groups) and aiming to publish your work in more popular journals and magazines, like the LRB or the TLS.
I don't want to say 'no one should try for an academic career in the Arts and Humanities in the UK at the moment', because that's too sweeping. But I think anyone planning to do that should have (1) a very clear understanding of what the process will entail and what the job will look like; (2) definite prospects of funding for their PhD, and a good sense of what kind of PhD project is likely to be marketable in their field; (3) some kind of safety net, financially and mentally, if things don't work out; and (4) a really solid Plan B that they would be happy to pursue if academia doesn't work out. It's like deciding to become an actor or a full-time novelist. It's not that no one should do it, or no one will succeed, but there's a bunch of risks involved that it's important to be realistic about and it's necessary to have as solid a safety net as possible.
posted by Aravis76 at 6:18 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
I suppose one bigger-picture question you could ask yourself is what your life goals really are, and whether it's true that academia is the best place to achieve those goals. From your post, it looks like you want:
(1) a "literary" life, i.e. to "read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)" -- academia can be a bit like this, on some days, if you're very lucky in your institution and colleagues. There's no guarantee that it will be, and it's likely that there will be many less fun elements as well (pressure to publish, administrative responsibilities, departmental politics)
(2) to have a job that supports you in managing your anxiety - hah. no. 1 in 4 PhD students struggle with anxiety and depression, I believe, and the statistics for full-time academics are also not great. It's a job where most of your projects are open-ended and not inherently time-limited, time is relatively unstructured, where you are constantly under pressure to perform, and where dealing with rejection and criticism is the norm. Managing one's mental health in this context can be a real challenge.
(3) to have a job that gives you financial security, and allows you to own your own home one day - not in the current job market, no. There's a real risk of being trapped in a cycle of insecure part-time jobs for years and years, with a fluctuating income and no permanent contract to help you get a mortgage.
So the question is, can you have the life you want - reading and writing texts you enjoy, surrounded by people who value what you value, interaction with students/young people - outside academia, while still achieving your other goals like financial security and protecting your mental health. I think, certainly, you can achieve the goal of a culturally rich and satisfying life, focused on literature, outside academia. If teaching is important to you, you could consider qualifying to teach in a FE or sixth form college setting, which means you wouldn't have to deal with the behavioural challenges involved in teaching younger children. If teaching is less important, you could pursue one of your other ambitions - aiming at job security and financial stability - while still reading and writing in social settings (e.g. creative writing classes or book groups) and aiming to publish your work in more popular journals and magazines, like the LRB or the TLS.
I don't want to say 'no one should try for an academic career in the Arts and Humanities in the UK at the moment', because that's too sweeping. But I think anyone planning to do that should have (1) a very clear understanding of what the process will entail and what the job will look like; (2) definite prospects of funding for their PhD, and a good sense of what kind of PhD project is likely to be marketable in their field; (3) some kind of safety net, financially and mentally, if things don't work out; and (4) a really solid Plan B that they would be happy to pursue if academia doesn't work out. It's like deciding to become an actor or a full-time novelist. It's not that no one should do it, or no one will succeed, but there's a bunch of risks involved that it's important to be realistic about and it's necessary to have as solid a safety net as possible.
posted by Aravis76 at 6:18 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
I have a humanities Ph.D (albeit in something more like a science, and I am working in a science department) and know a fair amount of successful humanities faculty in the US. I don't know the UK system as well but I know a fair number of people who have migrated into it at least temporarily, some permanently.
This is usually a polite way of saying don't do it. (And the corollary together with the last sentence in this quote, which I do agree with: yes, think about what else you could do, and then go do that instead.)
posted by advil at 6:24 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
- You should not self-fund or go into debt for a graduate degree in humanities of any sort, ever, no matter what, in any country (barring independent wealth I guess).
- To make it to a permanent position you need luck and the exact right credentials at the exact right time. To get the latter people typically talk about needing an insane amount of drive or monomania, and hard work, as well as independence and a way of identifying or creating topics that are hot. You also will often need to be perceived as having a certain 'spark' of brilliance. (This is actually extremely problematic as a hiring practice but it's very, very common in academia in my experience.) What exactly those credentials are will be very hard to predict in advance. For most humanities areas matching your description, you need an obvious path to a book that will be well-reviewed, possibly already a contract (not sure of the details and timing, you'll have to consult people in those areas). In my area I got interviews in part because I had 3 peer-reviewed publications (two journal, one book chapter) coming out at the time I was on the market. In some areas even this level of publications wouldn't be enough to compete.
- For Ph.D programs: you should try to figure out your candidate programs' placement records in as much detail as you possibly can. How publicized this is may vary by field and of course weaker programs have incentives to mask this, so I don't know how much luck you'll have. But I would not recommend going to a program where you don't have access to current placement info for _all_ Ph.D graduates regardless of whether they ended up in academia (and if this excludes every school, so be it.) The best standard, which is rare, is both first and last placement. You probably also want to know something about this for your particular candidate advisors. I can't really give advice on how to assess masters programs in systems that usually do MA then Ph.D separately.
- Anxiety really doesn't go well together with self-driven unstructured writing. Of course if you don't have anxiety issues at the beginning of a graduate program, you probably will by the end anyways, so IMO practically everyone is dealing with some form of it, even if they don't always admit it or describe it that way. Google "imposter syndrome". It's sort of a life of guaranteed permanent raised baseline anxiety levels.
- You should do your homework on how brexit will/may affect academia in the UK over the next several years -- from everything I've read it sounds really, really bad.
This is usually a polite way of saying don't do it. (And the corollary together with the last sentence in this quote, which I do agree with: yes, think about what else you could do, and then go do that instead.)
posted by advil at 6:24 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Faculty (after long, brutal slog in postdocs), Humanities-ish. You've got a lot of good advice above. I think self-funded masters are fine, especially if you're not completely sure where you want to go with your life; masters aren't so much of an investment that it's a real waste if it turns out not to be useful, and they are also courses that open up a bunch of doors above and beyond the academic treadmill.
But I'll second the do not self fund a PhD advice. And partly that's because of this suggestion: have a look at the top ten English departments in the UK (choose your league table, they're fairly interchangable and all rather arbitrary). Pick out the newest staff members. See where they got their PhDs from. That's where you have to go, or aim to go if not for the masters, then for the PhD. By and large those places have better access to the very limited pot of arts and hums funding, and you are more likely to get a sponsored PhD there; such opportunities are also often part of teams and research projects which can provide more support and a better springboard for when you want to move on. Pursing a career in academia without the right pedigree is - and I hate myself for being part of a system that does this, don't get me wrong - a pathway to realy unhappiness and frustration.
Finally: do not enter academia without a plan B. You absolutely must have a get out option that will make you happy, because the chance of success is vanishingly rare, and failure does real psychological harm to people. There are heaps of other opportunities to be part of the literary world - although, you're right, so much of that depends on finance and location (and knowing the right people). But there are other options.
posted by AFII at 6:25 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
But I'll second the do not self fund a PhD advice. And partly that's because of this suggestion: have a look at the top ten English departments in the UK (choose your league table, they're fairly interchangable and all rather arbitrary). Pick out the newest staff members. See where they got their PhDs from. That's where you have to go, or aim to go if not for the masters, then for the PhD. By and large those places have better access to the very limited pot of arts and hums funding, and you are more likely to get a sponsored PhD there; such opportunities are also often part of teams and research projects which can provide more support and a better springboard for when you want to move on. Pursing a career in academia without the right pedigree is - and I hate myself for being part of a system that does this, don't get me wrong - a pathway to realy unhappiness and frustration.
Finally: do not enter academia without a plan B. You absolutely must have a get out option that will make you happy, because the chance of success is vanishingly rare, and failure does real psychological harm to people. There are heaps of other opportunities to be part of the literary world - although, you're right, so much of that depends on finance and location (and knowing the right people). But there are other options.
posted by AFII at 6:25 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The funded Masters degrees I've seen ask you to talk about the research you plan to do (your dissertation), which I don't feel I would have a good idea for without having first done the actual coursework for the Masters.
If this is the difference between a taught and a research masters, it's worth looking into whether you'd need a research masters to have a reasonable shot at getting into a decent PhD program. I'm not familiar enough with UK academia or English to know the answer to that, but I'd definitely check whether the are ramifications beyond just funding.
posted by hoyland at 6:50 AM on October 19, 2016
If this is the difference between a taught and a research masters, it's worth looking into whether you'd need a research masters to have a reasonable shot at getting into a decent PhD program. I'm not familiar enough with UK academia or English to know the answer to that, but I'd definitely check whether the are ramifications beyond just funding.
posted by hoyland at 6:50 AM on October 19, 2016
Because it's raining and I am writing cover letters for the fourth year in a row despite some pretty good feathers in my academic cap (phd and nice postdoc in the interdisciplinary humanities) and because you've gotten more nuanced advice above, let me just say loud and clear
DO NOT GO TO GRAD SCHOOL IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.
This isn't a blanket statement for every person. And I loved grad school in equal measure to the amount it totally traumatized me (I am one of the lucky ones with this ratio). But just. don't.
Here's how to have "a literary life" ( whatever that means?!?!):
Get a subscription to the New Yorker, make some friends who also read, make friends with your librarian, make friends with the people smoking outside the library, talk about books, go to readings, write about books, maybe publish some of that writing in a place people will read it. Audit classes taught by brilliant minds if you can. Go to public lectures. Go up to the people who asked good questions at the public lectures and then ask if they want to have coffee and talk about books. Become an expert on something and then go to conferences for it.
But do not waste your time professionalizing these dreams by becoming an academic. It will sink its teeth into your anxiety and suck you dry.
That family member who is an academic? And you'll be sad if they succeed and you never tried? Imagine how sad you will be if you DO try and you DON'T succeed because it is a system in which no one succeeds and then all you are doing is comparing yourself with a relative and feeling bad that you've become so competitive.
posted by athirstforsalt at 6:56 AM on October 19, 2016 [16 favorites]
DO NOT GO TO GRAD SCHOOL IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.
This isn't a blanket statement for every person. And I loved grad school in equal measure to the amount it totally traumatized me (I am one of the lucky ones with this ratio). But just. don't.
Here's how to have "a literary life" ( whatever that means?!?!):
Get a subscription to the New Yorker, make some friends who also read, make friends with your librarian, make friends with the people smoking outside the library, talk about books, go to readings, write about books, maybe publish some of that writing in a place people will read it. Audit classes taught by brilliant minds if you can. Go to public lectures. Go up to the people who asked good questions at the public lectures and then ask if they want to have coffee and talk about books. Become an expert on something and then go to conferences for it.
But do not waste your time professionalizing these dreams by becoming an academic. It will sink its teeth into your anxiety and suck you dry.
That family member who is an academic? And you'll be sad if they succeed and you never tried? Imagine how sad you will be if you DO try and you DON'T succeed because it is a system in which no one succeeds and then all you are doing is comparing yourself with a relative and feeling bad that you've become so competitive.
posted by athirstforsalt at 6:56 AM on October 19, 2016 [16 favorites]
-How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through?
When you put it this way, my advice is to go ahead and apply to the top programs. Really, you should probably also apply to top programs in Canada and the US too. If multiple top programs are competing for you, go for it. If that's not the case, I would find something else to do.
-How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful.
I can't speak to literature; I do other stuff. But if you are deeply interested in the works you're reading for classes and filled with an urge to talk about them with other people and figure out stuff about them and so on, here is the first thing you need to know about teaching: The overwhelming majority of your students will not be like you. Will not be like that. Most undergraduate students will be at most semi-interested in what you're teaching, in a vague sort of way, but really are there because they want the BA for employment reasons. And that's fine and okay; different people have different goals and interests.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:04 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
When you put it this way, my advice is to go ahead and apply to the top programs. Really, you should probably also apply to top programs in Canada and the US too. If multiple top programs are competing for you, go for it. If that's not the case, I would find something else to do.
-How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful.
I can't speak to literature; I do other stuff. But if you are deeply interested in the works you're reading for classes and filled with an urge to talk about them with other people and figure out stuff about them and so on, here is the first thing you need to know about teaching: The overwhelming majority of your students will not be like you. Will not be like that. Most undergraduate students will be at most semi-interested in what you're teaching, in a vague sort of way, but really are there because they want the BA for employment reasons. And that's fine and okay; different people have different goals and interests.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:04 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Hi, I finished an English degree recently. I'm older than most - late 20s. I really like the idea of an academic career, but... (there are several buts)The first thing you should do is talk to one of your lecturers or tutors. Is there anyone at your undergrad institution that you feel you can approach to talk about this? What was the particular field or time period or author that most excited you? Recruiting potential graduate students and advising students with just your set of questions is part of the job, so they will be happy to do this, or at least pass your inquiry on to the postgraduate supervisor, graduate centre coordinator, or equivalent. The point is: there should be someone at your school that you can talk to. The other advantage of talking to your lecturers is that they might be able to advise you on potential universities to apply to for an MA (should they think this is appropriate for you).
my understanding of how you get from that to a permanent job is patchy. It sounds like a very insecure path ...Here's one data-point: it took me 17 years from starting my MA to getting my first permanent job in an English department and I had to emigrate to the other side of the world to do it. I'm pleased I did, but at any point during those 17 years I could easily have said "this isn't working. I'm going to try something else" and no-one would've blamed me.
How many people make it through to academic careers? How amazing do you have to be to make it through? Are there specific ways of making it to a permanent job?As Catseye says above in her excellent answer, this is the wrong way to think about it. It's not about being amazing or brilliant; it's often about being in the right place at the right time and having the right set of skills to apply to for whatever comes up. Academics often like to tell each other that "the right people tend to get jobs. Eventually." But this is because the discipline tends to be heavily Calvinistic in its thinking. The point is to be well-prepared; well-networked; and have as many strings to your bow as you can.
I'd reiterate Catseye's point about publishing, too. I had two articles out in major journals by the time I received my PhD; one became the writing sample I used to get my postdoc; and I got another 3 journal articles and a book chapter out in the first two years I was in post. I've had 6 outputs published so far in this REF period (that is, since 2014), with another in press. On the other hand, I've been able to that because I'm on the research fellow career pathway, not the lecturing pathway, and producing publications and bids and organising conferences and seminar series is essentially my job (in addition to teaching). If you're at a teaching-heavy institution, with a less supportive research culture, the opportunity to publish recedes into a "nice to have."
With changes to funding coming up in the sector, too, and the spectre of the TEF, there's a lot of pressure on certain institutions to cut back on their support for research, and we may well see a two-tier pathway opening up in hiring in the sector in the near future, where you either take a teaching lectureship or you lecture and produce research. Indeed, looking through jobs.ac.uk, you can see this happening already. This is a hideous generalisation, but I'll make it anyway: those who take jobs in the post-1992 universities often to tend find themselves utterly consumed by lecturing and course design and are not, shall we say, "supported" to work on their own research.
The outlook in UK Arts and Humanities academia is, like in the US, pretty damn bleak right now. Simply put, there are basically no jobs, or no permanent jobs.I just had a browse through jobs.ac.uk, and there are currently 10 full-time, permanent jobs at Lecturer level in the UK in English Literature. (I didn't count research and teaching fellowships and jobs at Senior Lecturer and above.) So I wouldn't say there are none, exactly, but it is a buyers' market and always will be.
How wonderful is it really, being an academic in English Lit? Getting to read (and write about) texts in an area you're interested in, interact with students around those texts, be in an environment surrounded by people who also care about similar things (literature, culture, education)? It *sounds* wonderful.It is great. But in any lecturing position, you'll find your time taken up by lecture writing, seminar or tutorial preparation, module team, curriculum, and departmental meetings, advising students, reading MA and PhD student work, and endless marking and assessment. Reading literature, even in an English department, becomes very ... instrumental.
Having said all that, doing an MA in English Literature can be a life-changing, wonderful experience in itself, aside from the anxieties you might have about where it can lead you. I loved mine, and I love teaching MA students, because they often seem utterly rapt by what they're doing. So I would say: yes, do it as a thing in itself if you really want to, and leave the worrying about doctoral study and career path until later.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:06 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The odds of success (i.e. a permanant position) are crummy, the stress is high, and if your anxiety manifests as social lack-of-desire/skill for networking, it's going to be a very very hard road. Hard work isn't enough. Connections are well over half the struggle.
I wouldn't do it unless you've got quite a lot of money (or family money tree) to support not only yourself while studying, but yourself for the patchy, difficult, and demoralizing postdoc years while you search for a permanent position in a haystack of other qualified underemployed candidates.
I think this woman's youtube channel and blog are a nice realistic look at the post-PhD employment struggle, and she's even sort of optimistic!
However, someone's got to get the magical unicorn job, and it well could be you! Best of luck in whatever you choose!
posted by sazerac at 9:31 AM on October 19, 2016
I wouldn't do it unless you've got quite a lot of money (or family money tree) to support not only yourself while studying, but yourself for the patchy, difficult, and demoralizing postdoc years while you search for a permanent position in a haystack of other qualified underemployed candidates.
I think this woman's youtube channel and blog are a nice realistic look at the post-PhD employment struggle, and she's even sort of optimistic!
However, someone's got to get the magical unicorn job, and it well could be you! Best of luck in whatever you choose!
posted by sazerac at 9:31 AM on October 19, 2016
I'm ABD in an English Lit PhD. It's been rewarding in ways--but none of those ways have to do with stability, peace, job prospects... It's not great to be in your mid-thirties and as clueless about your future as you were at twenty.
posted by Edna Million at 10:14 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Edna Million at 10:14 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have a PhD in sociology from a UK university. Six years out, I work as an IT project manager at a university and can absolutely tell you that academic jobs, at least judging from conversations with the academics that I've had over the past couple of years, it's really brutal out there. I mean, I'm a project manager because I couldn't see myself stuck in a cycle of short term contracts, scraps of reaching here and there just to have a shot at applying for a lectureship. The competition is fierce and the jobs themselves have little to do with life of the mind. Student are very much customers (hey, I'm implementing a customer relationship management for handling student interactions as we speak...) and academics struggle to find hours in the day to do the teaching, admin and research. If you suffer from anxiety, a PhD is likely to exacerbate that. Ok it's not all doom and gloom but it's a massive gamble and unless you have full finding and a burning desire to undertake the degree, I'd strongly recommend against it.
posted by coffee_monster at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2016
posted by coffee_monster at 10:33 AM on October 19, 2016
Also ABD in English (albeit in a US institution).
I love what I am doing, I am content that I made the choice to come here and do it....but all signs - both from my own observations/experiences, the experiences of others who completed my fairly well-respected program (which claims an abnormally "high" placement rate in the low to mid 70%s), and from my mentors, faculty members, and advisors - point to an increasingly dismal outlook for any sort of permanent, stable job prospects. Even with a brilliant and on-trend dissertation (which I do not think I have), even with publications in respected journals (which I don't have yet), and even with superb networking skills and efforts (which I absolutely do not have naturally, but am attempting, agonizingly, to cultivate), the jobs are simply disappearing as tenure-track positions in humanities departments are being replaced with adjunct and other non-permanent positions, or eliminated all together. Meanwhile, ever increasing numbers of humanities PhDs are being produced. It's been this way for a while now, and there are no signs that it will get better soon, if ever. It really, really is bleak. This is not a scare tactic, just a reality.
The ONLY reasons that I am continuing in my program are a) I know I would be happy (and perhaps even happier!) with a teaching career outside of a R-1 setting, including in high schools, community colleges, private secondary schools, etc (and have researched and am prepared for what additional qualifications I would need to be marketable for those types of jobs) should the job market slog become too unbearable/untenable for me; and b) I am fortunate to not be the only income-earner in my household, and therefore have some degree of safety-net to cover the inevitable dry periods between post-docs/adjuncting/etc if I do continue in academia. Without these two things, I would almost certainly have left after receiving my (funded) masters.
Anxiety and depression are real, serious issues in my department and in other departments at my institution....and my department is a relatively well-compensated, low-drama, supportive, and healthy place. Anxiety is baked in to the job, and if it's already a problem for you (as it was for me) be sure that the institutions and departments you are considering have tools and resources in place (and actually available) to help you manage.
tl;dr: don't get a PhD in the humanities unless you're NOT financially or emotionally dependent on that PhD turning into a stable job in academia, because (much, MUCH) more likely than not, it won't.
posted by Dorinda at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2016
I love what I am doing, I am content that I made the choice to come here and do it....but all signs - both from my own observations/experiences, the experiences of others who completed my fairly well-respected program (which claims an abnormally "high" placement rate in the low to mid 70%s), and from my mentors, faculty members, and advisors - point to an increasingly dismal outlook for any sort of permanent, stable job prospects. Even with a brilliant and on-trend dissertation (which I do not think I have), even with publications in respected journals (which I don't have yet), and even with superb networking skills and efforts (which I absolutely do not have naturally, but am attempting, agonizingly, to cultivate), the jobs are simply disappearing as tenure-track positions in humanities departments are being replaced with adjunct and other non-permanent positions, or eliminated all together. Meanwhile, ever increasing numbers of humanities PhDs are being produced. It's been this way for a while now, and there are no signs that it will get better soon, if ever. It really, really is bleak. This is not a scare tactic, just a reality.
The ONLY reasons that I am continuing in my program are a) I know I would be happy (and perhaps even happier!) with a teaching career outside of a R-1 setting, including in high schools, community colleges, private secondary schools, etc (and have researched and am prepared for what additional qualifications I would need to be marketable for those types of jobs) should the job market slog become too unbearable/untenable for me; and b) I am fortunate to not be the only income-earner in my household, and therefore have some degree of safety-net to cover the inevitable dry periods between post-docs/adjuncting/etc if I do continue in academia. Without these two things, I would almost certainly have left after receiving my (funded) masters.
Anxiety and depression are real, serious issues in my department and in other departments at my institution....and my department is a relatively well-compensated, low-drama, supportive, and healthy place. Anxiety is baked in to the job, and if it's already a problem for you (as it was for me) be sure that the institutions and departments you are considering have tools and resources in place (and actually available) to help you manage.
tl;dr: don't get a PhD in the humanities unless you're NOT financially or emotionally dependent on that PhD turning into a stable job in academia, because (much, MUCH) more likely than not, it won't.
posted by Dorinda at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2016
I cannot favorite Catseye's answer hard enough. Innate talent, hard work, and dedication to your chosen field are absolutely vital, but you should think of them as minimum qualifications, not the sole gatekeepers. I am not an academic, but my entire adult life has been spent academy-adjacent, and my resident academic would freely admit I am more than qualified to add my voice to the chorus of caution. Being an academic for all its benefits, is still very much a job, and one that comes with a lot of thorny real world challenges and responsibilities.
Luck, geographic flexibility, personal support, professional networking skills, trendy research interests, and a healthy dose of fearlessness/obliviousness are the bits that don't get talked about as much, but they are incredibly, if not more, important to finding a job in academia, much less a permanent one. I want to reemphasize the luck part. Do not fool yourself into thinking that all those poor American scholars aren't also applying for jobs in the UK. There are literally thousands, of brilliant people all around the world chasing the same paltry handful of jobs. The ones that succeed have done their best to prepare, and then got really bloody lucky, because there are more than enough qualified people out there to replace them with.
Do you have a romantic partner? Do you want one? Understand that the academic job market can muck that up in truly spectacular ways.
And once you're in? Kill any illusions about the lofty scholar perusing texts in a walnut-lined office. Academia comes with lots of paperwork, office politics, and endless meetings, same as most white-collar professional jobs, on top of student-acquired debt, massive job insecurity, and often a shedload of impostor syndrome. On the surface, you have lots of free time, but your time is rarely free, as you must balance it between teaching, research, writing, grant-writing, networking, committee work, etc. ad nauseam. Research may be open-ended, but grant proposal deadlines are not. Your students may be geniuses or idiots, but both types have the capacity to make your teaching life horrible. You are always under pressure to perform, even if you're just trying to make conversation over tea and biscuits, and you may have absolutely nothing in common with your colleagues, including research interests. It's not clear if depression and anxiety are results of academia or if academia just attracts particular types, but whether it's one, the other, or some combination of the two, you can still paint a rather glum picture. There will be an astronomical number of emails to answer.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying, there are much easier ways of making a living. I have an undergraduate degree in English and have also worked in publishing, but I have no idea what you mean by "literary life", and I do not think you will find it in academia. I think that you would be much happier cultivating a group of like-minded friends to talk about literature with rather than pursuing a high-stress, unsteady career in a highly competitive market. If, however, you read everything I wrote and still think its a good idea to go for it, take the time to come up with a clear exit strategy, because for every successful academic out there, there are a lot more happy ex-academics who realized it wasn't for them.
posted by Diagonalize at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Luck, geographic flexibility, personal support, professional networking skills, trendy research interests, and a healthy dose of fearlessness/obliviousness are the bits that don't get talked about as much, but they are incredibly, if not more, important to finding a job in academia, much less a permanent one. I want to reemphasize the luck part. Do not fool yourself into thinking that all those poor American scholars aren't also applying for jobs in the UK. There are literally thousands, of brilliant people all around the world chasing the same paltry handful of jobs. The ones that succeed have done their best to prepare, and then got really bloody lucky, because there are more than enough qualified people out there to replace them with.
Do you have a romantic partner? Do you want one? Understand that the academic job market can muck that up in truly spectacular ways.
And once you're in? Kill any illusions about the lofty scholar perusing texts in a walnut-lined office. Academia comes with lots of paperwork, office politics, and endless meetings, same as most white-collar professional jobs, on top of student-acquired debt, massive job insecurity, and often a shedload of impostor syndrome. On the surface, you have lots of free time, but your time is rarely free, as you must balance it between teaching, research, writing, grant-writing, networking, committee work, etc. ad nauseam. Research may be open-ended, but grant proposal deadlines are not. Your students may be geniuses or idiots, but both types have the capacity to make your teaching life horrible. You are always under pressure to perform, even if you're just trying to make conversation over tea and biscuits, and you may have absolutely nothing in common with your colleagues, including research interests. It's not clear if depression and anxiety are results of academia or if academia just attracts particular types, but whether it's one, the other, or some combination of the two, you can still paint a rather glum picture. There will be an astronomical number of emails to answer.
Which is all a long-winded way of saying, there are much easier ways of making a living. I have an undergraduate degree in English and have also worked in publishing, but I have no idea what you mean by "literary life", and I do not think you will find it in academia. I think that you would be much happier cultivating a group of like-minded friends to talk about literature with rather than pursuing a high-stress, unsteady career in a highly competitive market. If, however, you read everything I wrote and still think its a good idea to go for it, take the time to come up with a clear exit strategy, because for every successful academic out there, there are a lot more happy ex-academics who realized it wasn't for them.
posted by Diagonalize at 10:54 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I have a US Master's, but dropped out of a PhD program in 1995. I have literally spent the last twenty years feeling like my life was ruined. Academia sucks you into a vortex that makes you think no other life is worth living. That is why we have so many PhDs working part-time for extremely low wages and no benefits. In reality, you don't have to make literature your job to be devoted to it. I work in scientific publishing now, but I'm in several writing groups, read what I want to, and have had several poems published. But I've never been able to shake that feeling that I'm a bad person and a failure because I couldn't make it as an academic (not making it = multiple hospitalizations for severe depression before I gave up).
I highly recommend the following sites (though they are US specific):
100 Reasons not to go to Graduate School
Links on Rebecca Schumann's site. Schumann complete a PhD in German, but was uable to find a tenure-track position. She has written great articles on academia for Slate and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Links are on this page.
Just for the record, I got into an extremely competitive program and had every reason to believe I would finish. I did well in my coursework, but was unable to complete my dissertation. I was raising two kids by myself at the time, but I still feel like a failure.
posted by FencingGal at 12:30 PM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
I highly recommend the following sites (though they are US specific):
100 Reasons not to go to Graduate School
Links on Rebecca Schumann's site. Schumann complete a PhD in German, but was uable to find a tenure-track position. She has written great articles on academia for Slate and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Links are on this page.
Just for the record, I got into an extremely competitive program and had every reason to believe I would finish. I did well in my coursework, but was unable to complete my dissertation. I was raising two kids by myself at the time, but I still feel like a failure.
posted by FencingGal at 12:30 PM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
If there's a way you can find to network with current grad students, post-grads and newly minted academics I think that would be a great course of action, so you can see what their lives and career paths are actually like. I suspect you'll find there are both more and less wonderful bits in different areas of the career than you'd imagined, and it might even change your perspective entirely.
Do you have the means to pursue a masters in its own right? Doing one will put you in the academic environment, help you figure out where your research interests lie, give you a clearer idea of a potential career path, give you that validation of pursuing something important to you, and help you on the path to a PhD and/or a career in the field if you do decide you want to pursue those things.
Framing it as just doing the masters because it's something you love instead of framing it as "I am Making My One True Career Choice Right Now at The Age of Twenty-Something" would be helpful for your anxiety and also help you to analyse clearly if it's something you want to do. Pursuing more education is a great thing to do and probably unlikely to damage your chances of switching careers if you do decide the academic life isn't for you in the end.
posted by mymbleth at 2:31 AM on October 19, 2016